Reply To: Ladies First – Is it respectful or not?

It is the American custom, and reflects their cultural and social values. It is not prohibited to do so by halacha, though in our tradition a man would often not defer to a women (unless she was elderly, handicapped, or clearly more hashuv than he is, e.g. the Rebbe’s daughter) since that might be considered flirtatious (something the goyim have never found especially problematic, but that gets beyond what we disucss on YWN). So it probably would be best to let a woman get on the bus before you, unless you are in an all frum environment.